returning first paragraph from a string

I'm having difficulty returning the first paragraph of a string called $summary. (Usually this string will only be one paragraph, but it might contain more than one paragraph. Current data has one occurrence of a two-paragraph $summary.) Here's how I process when I want multiple paragraph display. This successfully generates the necessary HTML: $summary = trim($summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\r", "", $summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\n\n", "</p><p>", $summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\n", "<br/>", $summary); Here's what I thought would work to give me the first paragraph only: $summary = trim($summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\r", "", $summary); $summary = preg_replace("/^(.*)\n/", "\1", $summary); But for occurrences of $summary with two paragraphs, the above returns the second paragraph (without the first). The only way I can return the first paragraph for a two paragraph $summary is with: $summary = trim($summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\r", "", $summary); $summary = preg_replace("/(.*)$/", "\1", $summary); This gives me the first paragraph as desired (although I don't understand why!), but returns nothing for occurrences of $summary having only one paragraph. I also tried this: $summary = trim($summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\r", "", $summary); $summary = ereg_replace("\n\n", "</p><p>", $summary); $summary = preg_replace("#(.*)</p><p>#", "\1", $summary); This also returns only the second paragraph. Can anyone point out what I'm doing wrong, or suggest another approach? TIA -- Lowell Allen